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Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Indie Spotlight: Sonia Taitz

I love doing spotlights with small press authors. It's a great opportunity to get them talking about all sorts of behind-the-scene-y kinds of things with their books. Take this one, for example. Sonia Taitz (no stranger to TNBBC) dishes on her newest release, Down Under, a fictional story of love and loss, which she claims is loosely based on Mel Gibson. Take a peek at the three most common questions she gets hit with when she mentions that fact:

The Gibson Girl Speaks Out

When I tell people
I’ve just published a novel loosely based on the life and loves of Mel Gibson,
I usually get the same reactions:

1.
“Aren’t you afraid of him?”

2.
“Did you hear what he says about his critics?”

3.
“Does he know about your book?”

I’ll answer each question in turn.

1. I am not afraid of him. The Mel Gibson I know
(not that I actually know him, but I’ll get to that) is – when not under the
influence of alcohol or other distorting neurochemicals – a good, loyal, and
kind man. Not to mention a multimodal genius. On top of which, he is known to
be a good parent, and I place a great value on that.

2.
Yes, I did hear what he’s said about his critics. And there have been a few. When his movie
“The Passion” came out, reaction was not uniformly positive. One of Mel’s most
vociferous opponents was Frank Rich, former head theater critic for TheNew
York Times, and now a cultural columnist on pretty much anything he likes.
Or doesn’t like. Mr. Rich hated “The Passion,” and said so in bold black and
white, in the paper of record.

Mel’s
reaction to this negative, very public disdain was to say (and I paraphrase
slightly):

“Oh,
Frank Rich? I want to rip out his intestines and put them on a stick. And then,
I want to feed them to my dog.”

That’s
a critique in itself, I’d say – and nothing that I’d want to have directed at
me, or my middle. But I’ll make
allowances. Mel’s world is macho, and his movies can be graphic. Have you seen
what happened to Braveheart? Or what the ancient Mayans did to the unfortunates
in “Apocalypto?” Add to this that the man may have felt beleaguered. At the
time Mel made this comment about disemboweling his denigrators,
he was inundated with criticism. He was peppered with daily buckshot. And this
guy is not shy; he’s nothing if not outspoken. I think he was saying,
essentially: “Ouch.” I don’t think Mel Gibson literally wanted to excise Frank
Rich’s upper and lower intestines (including appendix and duodenum) and feed
them to his Fido in a bowl.

On the other hand,
I did feel some small misgivings when my brother, who lives in LA, reported
sighting Mel at his gym, working out in the company of someone the muscle
mavens call “Mr. Testosterone.” The possibility of androgen being given to this
already slightly touchy man – a man
with growing lats and delts – did not enhance my own sense of bodily safety.

Still,
essentially, I feel my bowels and all my other parts are under no threat. And,
to milk this metaphor to death, I think Mel Gibson likes people to have some
guts. He does, so why can’t I?

3. I highly doubt that Mel Gibson knows anything
about DOWN UNDER. I will tell you why. First, I explicitly warned my brother
not to greet the superstar, mid-rep, hoisting iron and grunting, like this:
“Oh, thought you’d wanna know. My little sis wrote a book based on you. She’s
Jewish, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, so you know she might wants to
start a war here. And, funnily enough,
she lives pretty close to your favorite person, Frank Rich.” (Note – Frank
actually used to live in my building.) No, my brother heeded my request and
said nothing. Of course, he chatted to
Mel, who was there day after day, but mostly about he-man stuff. Nothing that
would lead to homicide, or even a slight tantrum directed at an innocent female
scribe, however Semitic.

Second, no one
knows much about any novel, unless
it’s been written by Stephen King or Danielle Steel. (That’s why sites like
this are vital in getting the actual good word out.) Even big media coverage
doesn’t always change this calculus. I remember appearing on the “Today” show
to promote my first book, large publisher and all. Katie Couric herself, in her
heyday, interviewed me! I thought I’d have to wear shades for the rest of my
life, cowering from the Kliegs, shouting “no photos, please!” Not so. Can you
name that book? (It was MOTHERINGHEIGHTS. It is out of
print.)

Third, and last,
Mel and I had the chance to meet and speak, but we did not. Twice, he shot
movies on my very block. I watched him
ambling around my corner of the world, catching some breezes and rays near his
trailer. For a moment, I thought of
speaking to him, but knew that stars don’t like to be bothered, and that he was
working. But I could tell Mel was a good guy simply by the way he treated
others on the set. At that time, I’d been writing culture pieces for The New York Times for several few
years. I’d interviewed lots of stars, not all of whom were as nice as they
appeared. One who was not only nice, but intelligent and grounded, was Jodie
Foster. This two-time Oscar winner has always remained loyal to Mel Gibson,
even as others (former friends) ran for cover. Jodie was clearly a wonderful
person herself, and her positive view of Gibson – staunchly expressed over
recent years – says something about both of them.

If you add my two
neighborhood sightings to the Foster connection (not to mention my brother as
Mel’s gym buddy), I have practically
met the man, right?

So, with that authority vested,
what I want to say about my novel and Mel is this: DOWN UNDER has little to do
with the “facts.” The story I wrote flowed out of my head. It’s my vision of
what a man like him would have been like as a vulnerable boy. How he grew, whom
he loved, what broke his heart, and the journey he takes to mend it. DOWN UNDER
is fictional, down to the bottom. It’s true to my own heart, and that’s all it
wants to be. There’s a touch of its magical source in there, but it’s like the
twitching of a wand. A sprinkle of stardust.
Now you see him, now you don’t.

What Mel would
make of the book is secondary, but I do hope that he’ll like it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sonia Taitz is the author of In the King's Arms (2011), a novel
described as "beguiling" by The NewYork Times Book Review. Her
last book was the prize-winning memoir, The Watchmaker's Daughter (2012),
which was praised by Vanity Fair, The Readers' Digest, and
People, featured on C-SPAN's BookTalk, and nominated for the
Sophie Brody Medal by the American Library Association.

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Who's That Girl?

I have been buried beneath small press and self-published review copies since 2009. My passion for supporting the small press and self publishing communities has driven me out into the world wide web to demonstrate alternative ways to spread the word about amazing publishers, authors, and novels you might never had heard of. Feeding your reading addiction, one book at a time.